American football is the only sport in the world so utterly dull that it needs to coerce a group of five pensioners to stagger on at halftime and play guitars quite loudly to wake up everyone in the crowd.
That’s the reason why The Rolling Stones are set to play a little concert at the Super Bowl halftime show this weekend. That or the massive surge in record sales after they’ve played to 140 million viewers. Not that The Rolling Stones have escaped the Super Bowl with all their pride intact, however.
From all the fuss being made about it, you’d have thought that The
Rolling Stones (CDs) were getting ready to play a three-hour long marathon
gig of b-sides and never-before heard rarities at the Super Bowl
halftime show this weekend, before inviting Jesus onstage to help blast
through Brown Sugar. But no. The Rolling Stones are playing for just 12
minutes. That’s four songs – three if you start to factor in the onset of arthritis.
Hardly seems worth it.
Not that it’s stopped The Rolling Stones and the NFL getting
criticised at every turn, though. At first it was revealed that the NFL
had banned over-45s from the special Super Bowl crowd
invited onto the pitch to see The Rolling Stones play, in fear that
they’d all fall to the ground clutching their chests after hearing the
opening bars to Honky Tonk Woman. After some embarrassment, the NFL reversed its decision, but then came the Motown catcalls.
The Super Bowl is being held in Detroit this year – the home of
Motown. Some naysayers had been raising their voices to ask why a bunch
of crotchety old honkys like The Rolling Stones got to play the
halftime show, instead of some of the extraordinary Motown luminaries
that the town had produced. It was all looking a bit awkward for the
NFL, the Super Bowl and The Rolling Stones, but as Mick Jagger told a
press conference yesterday:
"The thing about the NFL is that they run a good show but occasionally
they make a mistake like everybody, but they were quick to rectify it. Motown is pretty well represented."
He’s
right – the pregame show will be a Motown spectacular, featuring
legends such as Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder and, um, Joss Stone. So
everyone’s happy.
The big question is, though: who’ll win the Super Bowl? Hello? We’re English – what the hell do we know about Super Bowls? We did play NFL Street 2 on the PlayStation a while ago, but
that’s literally all we know about the sport. So, by using our supreme intellect
and deducing skills, we’ll say that Xzibit will probably win the Super
Bowl this year.
Read more:
No Stones unturned in Motown – Seattle Times
[story by Stuart Heritage]